I don't post English translation of Japanese recipes without permissions from the recipe authors. But feel free to contact me about the dishes you're interested in.

Saturday, November 28, 2009

The Bluebird of Happiness

If I remembered correctly, it was a beautiful foodblog called OsloFoodie where I was first introduced to homemade rose hip tea. It was back in -- 2004 or 2005? The photo of her tea was oh so beautiful, and I felt jealous when she commented that over there in Norway, rose hips were everywhere on the roadside. After that, I bought young plants of dog rose online and grew them on the balcony. Yes, that was the start of my homemade rose hip tea project.

Unfortunately my dog rose died before giving me any rose hips, which automatically added "making homemade rose hip tea" to the list of my "indefinitely postponed projects." And my envy for those who can pick rose hips on the roadside remained.

Now I'm back in my hometown where the climate is almost subtropical and definitely different from Norway. And look what I found the other day when I rode dad's bicycle to the beach where I hadn't been since childhood!

The bluebird of happiness is in your home...

I'm going to dry these rose hips tomorrow. The weather doesn't seem to be nice, so I'll be using the oven like I did for drying cherry tomatoes in summer.Wish me luck! ;)

---------(Nov. 29, 2009)

OK. Take a look.

Honestly, I don't know if I can call this part of the project "fun." It could have been fun if these rose hips were bigger. But think about halving all these small ones and scraping the seeds and hair out of each! AHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhh...!!!

I gave up when I prepared almost half of them.

Dried rose hips (dried for apx. 35 min. at 140 degrees C )

And the above photo shows my very first "homemade rose hip tea." What do you think?I'm going to brew it when the weather is nice so that I can take good-looking photos of the tea...

I found your blog recently and LOVE it. My best friend is Norwegian, and when her son was a baby, I visited her in Norway. They have pureed rosehip baby food that can be purchased in the supermarket! It is supposed to be a great source of vitamin C. Do you have a recipe for suiton? My husband in Japanese and loves them. I used my imagination and created a recipe, but they were a little tough.

Thanks for sharing your life, etc. with us out here in the cyberworld.

What a great story! I'm so happy that you found your rose hips. They look like dog roses to me, which often grow by the sea. My family used to live in Sweden and you could find these rose hips growing wild all over the place, together with wild lingonberries and blueberries. It's such a nice feeling to gather something to eat from nature. I never really like the commercial rose hip puree, but perhaps the tea is better. Good luck and tell us how it turns out!

grub;Thanks. The tea gives... mmmmmm, I don't know how to describe. Some say tangy, but mine wasn't really tangy. I tasted somewhat starchy flavor, too. But maybe it was because I didn't use much rose hips to brew one cup of tea.

I use two digital cameras, a small one and a SLR. The top photo of each post is usually taken with the SLR, which you can probably tell because the background is blurred. My SLR isNikon D40, a beginner's favorite in Japan. (Or I could be wrong.) :P

jalna;Thanks.

gretchen;Pureed rosehip baby food! Yeah, it must be really V-C ritch, but I wonder how sour it might be.

I'm sorry I don't have a suiton recipe. Actually, I guess I haven't had suiton in my life... I only had suiton-like soups, but never real suiton. It's not very popular in my prefecture.

K & S;It was fun until I started seeding the rose hips, but... :P

YSC;Yeah, I think they are dog roses.

AH, wild lingonberries and blueberries. I wish I could go to Sweden someday!

grub;Goji berries must be much sweeter than rose hips, I suppose? I once tasted goji-berry infused liquor before and it was so good. :)

Aaah Obachan, it's such a coincidence I am reading your blog today and then suddenly saw you mentioned me here!

I use dried rosehips not to make into tea on its own but to add into normal tea (usually English breakfast tea). The dried rosehips impart some sourish flavour that I like in my tea (balanced by a little sugar, then it's perfect).

My grandmother used to make something similar when I was growing up in England and got sick. Much too messy for me to bother with (LOL, I'm lazy), but it's an old English remedy for bad colds and the flu.

Useful Sites

My Faves in Kochi

About Me

"OBACHAN" means a "middle-aged woman" or "aunty" in Japanese.
.*************************. Having moved back to my hometown in April 2009, I live in one of the desperately underpopulated areas in Japan now. Let me share my life in a real countryside with aging parents living in the same house. And here in Muroto -- the place where I chose to live -- you can hear the heartbeat of the Earth! ;)

Contact

Special Thanks to:

The contents of this blog created by me (text/comments and photos) are licensed under a Creative Commons License. Copyrights of the free web graphics used in this site and comments by the readers belong to the creators of the works.